Asia-Pacific FTA

A Free Trade Area of Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) will be pursued, one of the results of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit meeting in Japan over the weekend.

The FTA will include the ASEAN member-countries plus China, Japan, S. Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. The related news report is here.

Free trade benefits people. Exporters will have a wider potential market while importers and consumers will have a wider choice of suppliers from many countries at low or zero import tax. While there are some losers, their number is few compared to the gainers. And losses are often short-term while benefits are long-term.